Sunday, March 25, 2012

Interracial murder

The Trayvon Martin case is an opportunity to remind people of the reality of interracial crime in the United States.

For the purposes of this analysis, I'll use the term "whites" to refer to whites plus Hispanics since they get lumped together in the data. According to FBI data for 2010, 218 blacks were murdered by whites. Blacks murdered 447 whites. But this is comparing apples and oranges since whites are 6.4 times the size of the black population. If we calculate murders per 10 million in the race-specific population (interracial murder is rare), the rate is 8.82 for whites and 114.89 for blacks. So blacks kill whites at a rate 13 times higher than that of whites killing blacks.

Another way to look at it is multiply the black population by 6.4 to make it as large as whites. If it were as large, 2861 whites would have been murdered compared to the 218 blacks killed by whites.

Ron,I've been finding it difficult to find old UCR's, but I'm pretty sure the change was in the 90s or early 2000s. The FBI's site has pdfs for them but they're just the table of contents and their tool doesn't seem to provide the data I'm looking for. I might have to visit an actual library government documents section!

Another way of looking at the data that is more than charitable to blacks is to assume a perfectly homogenized population structure with blacks and white evenly dispersed among each other. Then assume that the only difference between the groups is their likelihood to commit murder; in other words, when they murder, they murder indiscriminately. What would we then predict the black on white vs white on black murder rates to be?

Correct me if I'm wrong but based on the more-than-charitable-to-blacks assumption above, the expected interracial murder rates would be 413 white murders of blacks (actual is 218) and 2552 black murders of whites (actual is 2459).

It looks like there needs to be some accounting for spatial structure of population at the very least.

This is a case of large fit young black man getting into a fist fight with a small chubby Mexican. The Mexican was losing and shot the black guy.

If you look up crime statistics you find that the population cohort with the second highest murder rate is that of 17 year old black males. They are second only to black males in their early twenties.

A 17 year old 6'2" unemployed black man is not the sweet innocent child that he was said to be. The term "thug" springs to mind. He seems to have not needed to carry a weapon. He was real good with his fists.

I blogged about this case a few times, minus the numbers. One of my major points was that being Hispanic is not a race. Due to European colonialism and Spain 'getting shit done', a person of any color can be Hispanic. The darker people in certain Caribbean Islands, as well as the actual Spanish people. People tend to forget that they are white. People being shitty about 'damn illegal Mexicans' are upset at the wrong people. Blame the Spanish for conquering a good majority of the world.

Olave d'Estienne, what changes isn't the total number of murders, but the total number of interracial murders. If we make the assumption charitable for blacks, the interracial murder rate by blacks is 4% higher than actually observed. For whites, the rate is 89% higher than actually observed.

The way I interpret this result is that blacks have little problem with venturing outside their racial neighborhoods to commit murder compared to whites.

The method of adjustment used in this post is simply wrong, violating the transitive principle of multiplication. To see this, consider a population consisting of 16% black and 84% white, in which whites and blacks were equally likely to murder, and murders happened indiscriminately across races. Then 84% of the murders would be committed by whites and 16% of their victims would be black people, so about 13% of all murders would be of black people by whites. Likewise, 16% of the murders would be committed by blacks, but 84% of those would be of whites, so about 13% of all murders would be of white people by blacks. If we found instead that 20% of all murders were of whites by blacks and 10% of blacks by whites, then this would mean that blacks were killing interracially at twice the rate of whites, not 13 times, as you calculate.

Another way to think of the issue is this: In 2010, there were X contacts between whites and blacks. Let's say that number is 100 billion. In 218 of those contacts, a white murdered a black. In 447, a black murdered a white. The black-on-white murder rate per contact is exactly what it appears to be - about twice the white-on-black murder rate.

In any case, this analysis of murder rates does not address the issue that angers black people about the Trayvon Martin case. They are concerned about the number of white killings of blacks that are ruled NOT to be murder. I don't know how large that number is, but I would be very surprised if it is not considerably larger than the number of black killings of whites that are ruled not to be murder, just as black people believe.

How often were those rulings incorrect? I don't know, but certainly some of them were, and obviously many black people think the number of incorrect rulings is large.

You can't just look at the murder rate that way. You have to take into account the size of the potential victim population. The white population is much larger than the black population. If a black person randomly murders someone, that someone is likely to be white. If a white person randomly murders someone, that person is unlikely to be black. Therefore even if murders occur randomly, your method of analysis is going to show that black murders of whites far outnumber white murders of blacks.

Suppose murder were colorblind and random. Then in a population that is ten percent black and ninety percent white you would expect ninety percent of the victims of black murder to be white and only ten percent of the victims of white murder to black. This would not be evidence of racial hostility. I don't believe this analysis has taken this into account. Maybe I'm mistaken.

Oops. I see anonymous above has already made my point. Anyway sometimes a reducto absurdum sheds light: if there were only one black in a population of, say, a million, then all black murder victims (if there were any) would be white and only an infinitesimal number of the victims of white murder would be black. It would prove nothing.

Here is a different, perhaps more telling approach to the problem. Which would you rather be, an upper-middle-class white walking through a lower-class black neighborhood or an upper-middle-class black walking through a lower-class white neighborhood?

Another interesting angle: suppose it were a hundred years ago in the Deep South in a small rural town. Would the choice have been the same? How about a hundred years ago in the North?

Many years ago I missed the Columbia University subway stop going uptown so got off at 125th St (in Harlem) with the intention of walking back 25 blocks or so. I was barely on my way when a couple of middle-aged black women called out to me and in a very friendly say said I was probably unwise to be walking that way. I turned around and took the train back. What does this show? Hint -- more than one thing.

It seems to me that this comment, above, gets to the heart of the matter:

"In any case, this analysis of murder rates does not address the issue that angers black people about the Trayvon Martin case. They are concerned about the number of white killings of blacks that are ruled NOT to be murder. I don't know how large that number is, but I would be very surprised if it is not considerably larger than the number of black killings of whites that are ruled not to be murder, just as black people believe."

i don't think ANYone was surprised--even if very upset--that Martin was shot. This happens with disturbing commonness, and we are all, black and white, almost numb to it. (not quite numb, thank God, but almost.) it is what happened NEXT, or what did not and still has not happened that got people so upset. the failure to arrest Zimmerman, the fact that the body of the victim was tested for drugs and alcohol but the shooter was not, and so on--this pattern is making people crazy, and justifiably.

by the way, the number of shootings, killings, whatever, compared between races or other groups has nothing to do with this particular case, and the 'justice' system's handling of it. i can't even figure out why some are raising this issue in the context of the Zimmerman/Martin case.

"But this is comparing apples and oranges since whites are 6.4 times the size of the black population."

Long story made short, the fact that there are 6.4 times as many whites to commit murder is cancelled out by the fact that there are 6.4 times as many whites to get murdered.

If race and murder had (absolutely) nothing to do with each other, then the number of whites murdered by blacks and the number of blacks murdered by whites would be (exactly) the same.

For instance: You would expect that the number of times people born on the 1st of the month get killed by people born on any other day, to be exactly the same as the number of times people born on any other day get killed by people born on the 1st of the month.

This calculation is flawed. The number of interactions between the black population and the white population is fixed on both sides. The number of times a white individual interacted with an individual black person is equal to the number of times a black individual interacted with a white person. This means that for each interaction the black person is about twice as likely to kill the white person as to be killed by the white person on each interaction. The minority is much more likely to interact with the majority than vice a versa your "13 times" rate is a reflection of the fact that many whites never even interact with a black person.

Long story short, if we assume that blacks and whites commit any given crimes at equal rates, and that they do not discriminate when picking victims, ignoring spatial distribution of the population and the possibility of mixed groups of attackers, we should have an equal number of interracial crimes committed by blacks and whites.

E.g., assume that whites are 87% and blacks are 13%, and make my other assumptions above with respect to violent crimes. Then blacks would commit 13% of crimes, 87% of which would be against whites. Whites would commit 83% of crimes, 13% of which would be against blacks. IOW, ~11% in both cases.

This is manifestly not what the data say. In the year I examined, 76% of interracial crimes were committed by blacks against whites, whereas only 12% of interracial crimes were committed by whites against blacks.

murder is not the same as killing. 1. blacks are convicted at higher rates than whites for the same act, and convicted of higher level felonies for the same acts and receive longer sentences for the same crimes. 2. blacks are falsely convicted of murder at a much higher rate than blacks. the relative number of blacks later proven to have been wrongly prosecuted and mistakenly convicted is far higher. 3. all across all crime statistics blacks are prosecuted at higher rates, juries convict at higher rates, blacks serve longer sentences for the same crime. in addition the category black has virtually no scientific meaning. for example, tiger woods is less than one quarter African. he is 1/4 chinese. 1/4 thai. 1/8 american indian. 1/8 dutch. his 1 afro-american grandfather is mixed. so he is counted as a black. so called "white" hispanics such as ladinos are from 50% to 100% american indian. some blacks, such as the blacks living on islands off the coast of the carolinas north and south and georgia spoke dialects of yoruba, a nigerian language until the 1970s.

black regions of Dutch and French Guyana and parts of Venezuela spoke actual Yoruba well into the 1970s. one group is counted as hispanic and "white" by immigration law and the other is "black" but the "blacks" are from 1/4 to 1/2 half white.

what gets categorized as black or white has almost nothing to do with any rational definition of race.

many black people get killed by whites and no white gets convicted because the killing is not prosecuted as murder. may not even be prosecuted at all. it is ruled "accidental" "assailant unknown"

comparing "black" to "white" statistics without any other factors looked at at all is frankly racist. "white" and "black" are racist terms unrelated to anything biological. historically invented to justify chattel slavery in the Americas.

African kings in the Gold Coast went and found "black" africans in the interior and sold them to "white" Portuguese and the Gold Coast Africans and the Portuguese sailors were the same color skin.

if i am black shooting randomly at other americans i am going to shoot about 6 whites for every black i hit. a white person shooting randomly will shoot about 1 black for every 6 whites they hit. because the target is 73% white. until blacks start killing whites in ratios higher than 6 to 1, there is no black bias in killing whites. even if blacks do kill at a higher rate than whites. but the fact is whites who kill blacks don't get convicted of murder at the same rate so any comparison is simply frankly racist.

if i am black shooting randomly at other americans i am going to shoot about 6 whites for every black i hit. a white person shooting randomly will shoot about 1 black for every 6 whites they hit. because the target is 73% white. until blacks start killing whites in ratios higher than 6 to 1, there is no black bias in killing whites

As I trained to explain above, I think that's wrong.

If you are a black and you are killing people independently of their skin colour, and the target is 73% white, 27% black (or whatever), then 73% of your victims will be white.

However, assuming per capita rates of killing are the same, you (i.e. blacks in toto) only represent 27% of the total killings, so blacks killing whites is 100*(0.27*0.73)= 20% of total killings.

At the same time, since whites are 73% of the population, and they kill in the same fashion, they cause 73% of all deaths in this fashion, 73% against other whites and 23% against blacks.

Again, interracial killing of blacks by whites is 100*(0.73*0.23)= 20% of the total.

If you think about this it's actually fairly obvious.

Whereas, according to the FBI data, given that you are a victim of interracial murder in 2010, you are twice as likely to be a white murdered by a black than a black murdered by a white.

I come to this discussion via John Derbyshire's recent well-known post, where he uses Inductivist's figures to support his own claim that average black-on-white behavior is even more antisocial than black-on-black behavior.

The figures do not support that claim. What is undeniable is that blacks commit more murders, in relation to their proportion in the population, than whites. They also commit more 'interracial' murders, in absolute numbers, than do whites (447 Black-on-white against only 218 White-on-black).

However, John Derbyshire's claim requires the stronger proposition that blacks commit murders against whites even more often than one would expect, taking account of their respective proportions in the population. I do not see any way in which the figures can support that proposition. For this purpose the proportion of blacks among murderers is irrelevant: what counts is only the proportion of blacks and whites among potential victims. Since, in the population as a whole, whites are in a majority, one would at least expect that the majority of murders by blacks would have white victims, but this is very clearly not the case: only about 15% of murders by blacks have white victims. The higher number of black-on-white than white-on-black murders is due solely to the higher propensity of blacks to commit murders in general, not to any special preference of blacks for white victims. Indeed, the bare figures suggest a strong preference for black victims.

Of course, things may be entirely different if we consider matters on a local basis. Quite possibly, if we had figures for local areas there would be a disproportionate number of white victims. All I am saying is that Inductivist's figures in themselves do not support Derbyshire's claim.

...a correction to my previous comment: the higher number of black-on-white than white-on-black murders is due partly to the higher propensity of blacks to commit murders in general, and partly to the relatively low proportion of white-on-black murders. Whites murder blacks somewhat less often than might be expected from the proportion of blacks in the total population.

The media has created an illusion that Negroes are the ones who will return your lost dog, hand you your wallet when you drop it, and are so cool compared to nerdy White people. It is on about every commercial now in case you have not noticed.

As important as not playing with fire or looking both ways to cross the street; parents should be teaching their children to ALWAYS stay away from Negroes.

Keeping your kids alive is far more important than being told you’re a racist, bigot or not Christian for avoiding multicultural enrichment.

There may be a good Negro out there somewhere but it is not worth risking your families’ lives to find one. One mistake and your dead.

Innocent, unsuspecting, and hopelessly naive Whites are mugged, raped and murdered each day. The Negros are becoming much more violent each year. Law Enforcement seems to insure the criminals' rights are upheld far more than arresting obvious criminals. Think about your loved ones; Death is a high price to pay for an incorrect assessment of Black Crime.

In conclusion; the tsunami of violent crime in our cities, schools, and society gives credibility to those who first opposed integration

A lot of posts are mistakenly trying to re-work the interracial figures back into the entire population. The argument is, if all murders were taken to be racially random, then blacks would still murder more white because of the difference in population sizes. This is true, but if you take out the racial element, then you have to include black-black and white-white murder. Blacks exceed whites in the total number of murders. Now factor in the difference in population sizes and your average race-blind black is a far more murderous individual than your average race-blind white.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be." ~ Lord Kelvin